Details

Date Published

Date Built

CPU Clock Rate

CPU Temperature While Idle

33.0° C

CPU Temperature Under Load

81.0° C

GPU Core Clock Rate

1.03GHz

GPU Effective Memory Clock Rate

5.2GHz

GPU Temperature While Idle

38.0° C

GPU Temperature Under Load

59.0° C

Description

This gaming computer was designed and built by me for my friend of 10+ years. He was tired of always running the Future Shop bargain computers and came to me with an almost limitless budget and said build me a real computer. Based on his wants/needs and my recommendations this is what we came up with. Some have said it is overkill and some have questioned our hardware choices but regardless she is a beautiful machine and runs like a dream. I hope it will keep him very happy for many years.

*Update (July 12, 2014): Funding is in the works to add a second Sapphire Radeon R9 295X2 8GB graphics card, reason being is that at 4K Star Citizen chokes this rig out.

*Update (Oct 3, 2014): Second R9 295X2 has arrived just waiting on the 1600w power supply to come and then it's showtime. The EVGA SuperNOVA 1300 G2 can only supply +12V@108.3A, we need +12V@112A (28A of current to each of the 8-pin auxiliary power connectors, 50A of combined current to the pair of 8-pin auxiliary power connectors) to power both cards, so rather than take a chance and end up blowing the power supply and potentially other hardware, we're going to grab a EVGA 1600 G2 just to be safe, this will give us +12V@133A. We're also replacing all of the AF120's with SP120's this should provide better airflow due to the design of the front bezel (so I'm told).

*Update: (Oct 24, 2014): We have both R9 295X2's and the 1600w EVGA power supply now. Just need to find time to remove the old power supply and R9 295X2, relocate the H105 rad to the front, install both R9 295X2's, replace the stock fans on the Sapphire rads, and install the new power supply. Should have pics of the completed project up by Halloween if all goes well :) (Parts List Below Has Been Updated)

295x2 both looks cool, makes less noise, and performs better than 2 290x because with both GPUs on one PCB you're getting the full amount of VRAM (8 GB) instead of where if you CrossFire 2 290x, even if both had 4 GB, you wouldn't get the full 8 GB because CrossFire and SLI both don't work like that. Same goes for adding a 3rd card. So I'm sure this guy did it for looks, performance, and cooling reasons.

I agree about the looks, noise and cooling. The RAM, however, is handled the same was as two cards in CF. Both GPUs on the PCB are connected via a CF bridge, so the same data is duplicated in the RAM for both GPUs.

There were a few reasons behind this choice, it runs very quiet, the thought of having dual aio closed loop liquid cooling along with the H105 was enticing, have the option of adding another R9 295x2 down the road, it looks really badass and it comes in a freakin' suitcase lol

Would you have preferred buying simply a 2x8GB or 4x4GB single kit instead of getting two 2x4GB kits? I mean, the processors ARE supposed to be binned if they're all in the same kit, so it helps quality if they're all in the same kit, so I don't get why you didn't just get a 2x8GB or 4x4GB RAM kit.

Did you have to modify the evga 1300W power supply to ensure it got the power it needed from the psu or buy any accessories etc? I heard it needs 2 8 pin connectors on seperate rails and a total of 50 amps combined
Thanks! Greg

Probably my favourite build on the whole site, this is such a sexy beast.
Isnt your CPU running a little hot? With a 105 and running stock clocks the temperature should be lower under load.
Another problem is do you think the 4790k will bottleneck 2x 295 x2s?

Yeah the cpu is running quite hot, we tried to OC but could not keep it stable even under the slightest overclock, it would run good for 3-5 hours then reboot for no reason. For now we're running all stock clocks and it's running all day no issues. Not sure what's with the heat, might try a different thermal interface material. Hoping the 4790k can keep up with the 2x295x2s, short of dropping in a xeon not sure what else could be done.

Possibly if you happen to have the money, you could invest into a Haswell E processor or one of the newest 5k processors they released most of those processors have 6 cores, one has 8, Only if your 4790k isn't keeping up though, Very good build. +1

Awesome Build! I know I'm a bit late on commenting on this build but when i saw it i was like OMG. The color scheme worked out great and the cables were so neat and I wish i had the ability to +1 this 1000 times but i cant. I'm just curious where this 10+ year old got this money from.

Yes sir, I use that compound on all of my builds. However you might try the Artic Silver 5 rather than the Ceramique 2 compound, I find the Ceramique 2 runs a little warmer than it should. I'll try it on my next build.

True, been going over different configs and might actually put the GPU rads on top and move the CPU rad to the front. All depends if everything will fit/reach. Guess we'll find out once we get in there :)

So, this is where we're at: We have the 2 new R2 295X2's ready to go, however the EVGA SuperNOVA 1300 G2 can only supply +12V@108.3A, we need +12V@112A (28A of current to each of the 8-pin auxiliary power connectors, 50A of combined current to the pair of 8-pin auxiliary power connectors) to power both cards, so rather than take a chance and end up blowing the power supply and potentially other hardware, we're going to grab a LEPA G1600 just to be safe, this will give us +12V@133A. We're also replacing all of the AF120's with SP120's this should provide better airflow due to the design of the front bezel (so I'm told).

Haven't had any throttling issues that we've noticed but we are having some really goofy issues with different games such as Dead Rising 3, when launched it causes a huge memory leak and takes off, 2 4 6 8 10 12Gb of RAM until it runs out and just locks up. Still playing with settings, we'll get her all figured out :)

It's an absolutely amazing monitor in every way, just make sure you have the horsepower to run it, we quickly found out that one R9 295X2 was not enough to tame this beast on the most graphically demanding titles such as Star Citizen

Yeah for workstation purposes it will work like a dream. It works well for gaming on our R9 295X2 on most games we get ~25-30fps, we've got another R9 295X2 to put in there now so that should bump us up to ~40-60fps we're hoping.....hoping ;)

truthfully idk if anyone else has seen the "VS" reviews but unless its one of like AMD's latest graphics cards VS one of nvidias 500 series AMD gets their *** kicked hard by nvidia NEVER GO WITH AMD ANYTHING unless your building a server then use a amd cpu.

EDIT

The reason we went with the R9 295X2 was because we eventually wanted to go with 2 of them in crossfire (which we have now done) and at the time the Titan-Z was $3000. The thought of running 4 780Ti's in SLI (~$2400@~$650/card) also crossed our mind but would have cost more than two R9 295X2's we picked up for $2339.38 total.

Total garbage, damn thing won't break 30fps on some games. Can't figure out why, been tweaking it for two weeks now and just can't get good performance out of it. Hits 21000 in 3DMark Firestrike, which I believe is low for the hardware. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Damn that's so strange. i Would be so upset if i spent $2300+ on gpu's alone and not hitting 30fps in some games. There is something def wrong there though because from all account's just 1 295x2 is supposed to be beast. Makes no sense to me, Now a day's your supposed to be able to plug in a gpu and it should be good to go with very little tweaking involved. I would think with 2x 295x2 you would be able to achieve 60fps at high setting's at 4k resolution. I really hope you get this sorted.

Damn, that's a sexy ************* build. Too bad there isn't a 5960X in there haha. One question though, why didn't you go for the Corsair Dominator GT? It wouldn't fit? If so it's sad, it would look so freaking cool with those.

awesome build in my opinion! only thing is, i wouldve gone for a set of 16gb RAM because it would have been MUCH cheaper, so for the 16GB you got at 2133hz, getting a 16gb set (8gb x2) would have been cheaper at the same clock speed of 2133hz maybe even faster. So yeh RAM coulda been cheaper

I had 2x295x2 on mine before but the power and amperage draw was just too much. Didn't even overclock the cards and burnt up two power supplies. I would try to overclock my CPU and power supplies would cry out in terror. That meant I had no headroom for the 295x2's and that defeats the purpose of a water-cooled card imo. Ended up creating my own custom loop and doing 3x980's.

Yeah it's honestly just too much. I ordered a custom water cooling kit for my CPU/3 GTX 980's that I swapped too and dumped the projectors, regardless of their size I bought 3 Rog Swift G Syncs and a 4th touch screen monitor +Cooling kit for the same price... no joke.

I have pretty much the exact same build except with an X99 platform and a 5820k and an NZXT X61 240mm AIO. I'm having heat issues with the H440 where for example Crysis 3 would start at 40 FPS ~ 4k and then dip down to 23 FPS just at the same scene - how do you have your AIO units for the cards currently configured? Also, what drivers do you have? Most of the games I try to run only seem to utilize the first 295x2 because my power consumption hovers around ~700 Watts instead of ~1,200 Watts. When I do stress test in AIDA64, both cards work fine and the power consumption is ~1,200 Watts. Thanks!

Hi OP, I'm a rookie PC builder about to make my first one. PC part picker says the NZXT S340 mid tower case is not compatible with the H105 water cooler. Is this right? Did you have to do any adjustments and modding to make it work? Thanks

It's a whole lot quieter than I expected. NZXT did a great job soundproofing the H440 with the foam on the side panels. Someone had mentioned to me that I should upgrade the Corsair Quiet fans to the High Performance ones because the airflow in the H440 is not great so that's what I did. I was pleasantly surprised when I first turned it on at how quiet the system is as a whole with all the panels in place and the fans at 100% duty cycle. We are still awaiting the 4K monitor which should arrive today then we'll run some benchmarks at full power and see if we can give that R9 295X2 a workout, it may create a bit of fan noise once we push it to the limits but so far running our benchmarks at 1920x1080 doesn't even phase it as was expected.